Forward Carers’ Birmingham Carers Hub service shortlisted for Social Enterprise of the Year at Birmingham Awards 2026
We are delighted that Forward Carers – Birmingham Carers Hub has been named a finalist for Social Enterprise of the Year at the Birmingham Awards 2026.
Now in their 11th year, the Birmingham Awards celebrate the people, businesses, organisations and initiatives making a positive difference across the city.
This year saw a particularly strong response, with the organisers highlighting the quality and diversity of nominations received.
Forward Carers – Birmingham Carers Hub is one of ten finalists shortlisted in the Social Enterprise of the Year category.
You can vote for us below, with voting closing on 13th October ahead of the awards on 7th November.
Supporting Birmingham’s unpaid Carers
Birmingham is home to around 91,500 unpaid Carers: people supporting a family member or friend who could not manage without their help because of illness, disability, a mental health condition, addiction or increasing frailty.
The contribution made by unpaid Carers to families, communities and our wider health and care system is enormous. But caring can also have a significant impact on a person’s own health, wellbeing, finances, relationships and ability to work or take time for themselves.
Birmingham Carers Hub exists to make sure Carers do not have to navigate those challenges alone.
Led by Forward Carers and delivered by a partnership of local specialists, the Hub provides a city-wide route into information, advice, Carer Assessments, and practical and wellbeing support.
We bring together local and specialist organisations so that Carers can access the right help for their individual circumstances.
Since 2014, more than 50,000 Birmingham Carers have been supported through Birmingham Carers Hub.
Stronger in partnership
At the heart of Birmingham Carers Hub is the belief that working with organisations with deep community connections and specialist expertise to offer one city-wide route into support, helps us best respond to the breadth and diversity of caring across Birmingham.
Our Delivery Partners contribute expertise spanning older people, dementia, disability, culturally responsive support, health, wellbeing and community-based provision.
Together, this creates a network able both to reach Carers who might otherwise remain unidentified and to provide support that reflects their individual circumstances.
This finalist recognition belongs to that wider partnership: our Delivery Partners, colleagues, commissioners and community and health partners who each play a part in identifying, reaching and supporting Birmingham’s Carers.
A social enterprise with a purpose
Being shortlisted specifically for Social Enterprise of the Year also matters to us.
Forward Carers is a Community Interest Company. That means our purpose is social impact: using our resources, partnerships and enterprise to improve support for Carers.
Alongside the core Birmingham Carers Hub service funded by Birmingham City Council, our social enterprise model enables us to seek additional investment and develop new partnerships that extend what is available to Birmingham Carers.
This has included additional mental health support, activity to identify Carers through health and community settings, and initiatives designed to address practical barriers including financial pressures, transport and digital exclusion.
It is an approach based on a simple principle: the more effectively organisations and communities work together, the more Carers we can recognise, reach and support.
Thank you to Birmingham’s Carers
Most importantly, we want to use this recognition to thank Birmingham’s unpaid Carers.
Every day, Carers make an extraordinary contribution to the lives of the people they support and to our city as a whole. Birmingham Carers Hub exists because of you.
Carers also continue to shape the service: sharing experiences, telling us what works and what needs to improve, and helping us develop support that responds to the realities of caring.
We are proud to have Birmingham Carers Hub recognised alongside so many organisations making a difference across Birmingham, but the greatest measure of our success will always be the difference the service makes to the lives of Carers.
A celebration of Birmingham Carers Hub delivery partnership
Thank you to our brilliant Delivery Partners:
Action for Children, Age UK Birmingham, Age Connects West Midlands, Ashiana Community Project, Barefoot Wellbeing CIC, Birmingham Buddhist Centre, Chinese Community Centre – Birmingham, Dementia Carers Count, Headway Birmingham and Solihull, Kissing it Better, Midland Mencap, OSCAR Birmingham, University Hospitals Birmingham, YMCA Sutton Coldfield, and other specialist partners.
Vote for us
If you have been supported by Birmingham Carers Hub, we hope you will vote for us before 13th October.
The Birmingham Awards 2026 take place on Saturday 7 November 2026.
Whatever the result on the night, being shortlisted for Social Enterprise of the Year is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate Birmingham Carers Hub, the organisations behind it and, above all, Birmingham’s unpaid Carers.
